Urea Monitoring And Replenishment Scheduling of Vehicles

ABSTRACT

Urea supply information with is integrated with vehicle location, routing and urea consumption information to generate driver guidance for obtaining urea resupply or, at a minimum, automatically generating orders to position supplies of urea at a target location.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The invention relates to vehicle telematics and more particularly toproviding routing and scheduling of vehicles for replenishment of urearequired for exhaust after-treatment on some diesel engine equippedvehicles.

2. Description of the Problem

Diesel engine equipped highway vehicles will, beginning in 2010, berequired to meet tightened emission standards in the United States. Oneafter-treatment technology developed to reduce emissions from dieselengines, selective catalytic reduction (SCR), requires urea. The UnitedStates Environmental Protection Agency has mandated that vehicles bedisabled if the diesel pollution control system is not operative.Exhaustion of the on-board urea supply on SCR equipped vehicles would bea condition requiring making a vehicle inoperative.

There is a need to insure the reasonable availability of urea to allowoperators of commercial vehicles to replenish on board supplies of ureawhere little extant urea distribution infrastructure exists. Barton andLonsdale writing for the Diesel Engine Emissions Reduction (DEER)conference of 24-28 Aug. 2003 stated that urea costs would be dominatedby distribution costs and not primarily be production or raw materialcosts. With urea consumption in liquid measurement terms equaling about5% of fuel consumption a 25 gallon urea tank would support a range of3,250 miles on a vehicle achieving an average fuel economy of 6.5 milesper gallon, typical for a heavy duty truck. Replenishment of urea atlocations close to production facilities to minimize its cost promisessome cost savings. However, it is possible that development of a ureadistribution system is being depressed by the possibility thattechnological developments may render obsolete urea based SCR systems.

If a vehicle must be removed from service awaiting replenishment of ureaits owner may incur substantial costs due to unavailability of thevehicle and the need to arrange an emergency delivery of urea to thevehicle. It would be advantageous to anticipate the need to replenishthe supply, and be able to efficiently route the vehicle near existingsupplies, pre-schedule replenishment and/or preposition supplies tominimize down time of vehicles.

The assignee of the present invention operates the International AwareVehicle Intelligence system, an enhanced vehicle telematics systemproviding vehicle performance tracking, diagnostic functions and mappingcapabilities through a mixture of on-board and off-board electronics.Owners of vehicles may subscribe to the system. The off-boardelectronics include wireless communications systems and the globalpositioning system (GPS).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

For a vehicle equipped with an internal combustion engine and an SCRexhaust after-treatment system using urea, the invention integratesavailable urea supply information with vehicle location, routing andurea consumption information to generate driver guidance for obtainingurea resupply or, at a minimum, automatically generating orders toposition supplies of urea at a target location. A positioninginformation system provides current vehicle location. The vehicle tracksfuel consumption and urea tank fill levels. This data is reported over acommunication link to a central data processing server which can accesscurrent and projected availability of urea along likely routes andreturn the data to the driver of the vehicle.

Additional effects, features and advantages will be apparent in thewritten description that follows.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are setforth in the appended claims. The invention itself however, as well as apreferred mode of use, further objects and advantages thereof, will bestbe understood by reference to the following detailed description of anillustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic of a telematics systems adapted for data conditiondata collection and integration system for enhancing commercial vehiclein service time.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a vehicle controller area network controlsystem adapted for use in the data collection and integration system ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a simplified flow chart related to vehicle identification androuting for urea replenishment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the figures and in particular to FIG. 1, a generalizedvehicle telematics system 100 emphasizing central support for vehiclemanagement is illustrated. Vehicle telematics system 100 may beimplemented using one, or more typically, a large plurality of vehiclesrepresented by vehicle 102, which communicate with a manufacturer's orvehicle operator server 114 using any convenient means. The linkages aretypically implemented over a cellular telephone link 108 to link with acellular base station 112 or short range RF link.

Vehicle 102 includes an electronic control system based on a controllerarea network (CAN) system 104. Controller area network system 104 linksnumerous controllers onboard commercial vehicle 102 for datacommunication and allows central activation and control of remote datacommunications services as through cellular phone link 106 and use ofservices such as global positioning using a global positioning unit 108reading GPS satellites 110.

Cell phone base station 112 is linked by land lines including, ifadvantageous, internet services, for the transfer of data from cellphone link 108 to a server 114. The data from the vehicle 102 caninclude, as set forth in detail below, information relating to engineloading, extreme brake use and other vehicle operating variablescollected by the CAN system 104. Records forwarded from vehicle 102 aretime, date, location and mileage stamped. Data can be forwarded from avehicle over a cell phone link by connection 115 (such as short range RFor direct hand wire connection) to server 114 which accesses statisticalprocessing services 124 for determination of projected duration of theurea supply based on its historical relation to fuel consumption for thevehicle 102. Data bases 128 including geographic information systems canbe accessed to project fuel consumption based on routing of the vehicle(if available) and to update the list of urea supply points for uplinkto the driver on board the vehicle 102. Server 114 maintains a websitewith pages for each vehicle 102 which may include a map with thevehicle's location and notations as to the locations of supplies ofaccessible urea supplies, emphasizing supplies located along thevehicle's projected route.

Server 114 maintains databases of vehicle statistics indexed by mileageon databases 128 and the availability of urea at geographicallydistributed urea service facilities 190. These records allow in urea usetrends to be detected by comparison operations 124 with the resultsbeing placed on a secured page on website 122 for the use of management.

Referring now to FIG. 2, the features of a controller area networksystem 104 such as used on vehicle 102 are set out. Controller areanetwork 104 has as a foundational element a programmable body computer230 based on a microprocessor 272 and memory 274. Memory 274 may in turninclude both volatile and non-volatile sections (not shown).Microprocessor 272 communicates with other parts of the programmablebody computer 230 over a conventional bus. Among the other parts of thecomputer are input/output devices for handling network communicationsincluding first (public) and second (proprietary) controller areanetwork (CAN) interfaces 250. A vehicle electrical power system 245provides power to all of the components. Microprocessor 272 is directlyconnected to input and output devices installed in the cab of a vehicle.

CAN system 104 includes two distinct controller area networks based on afirst bus using the public codes of the Society of Automotive Engineers(SAE) standard for J1939 networks and a second using proprietary codes,the definition of which is allowed under the standard. By “proprietary”it is meant only that standard format J1939 data block may be defined asdesired by an OEM. The public bus connects first CAN interface 250 to aplurality of system controllers including an instrument and switch bank212, a gauge cluster 214, an anti-lock brake system controller 219, atransmission controller 216 and an engine controller 220. Any of thesecontrollers may in turn be connected to one or sensors of packages ofsensors associated with a specific controller. For example, ABScontroller 219 collects data from sensors 231 which include at least thewheel speed sensors used for determining skidding. Transmissioncontroller 216 may track transmission fluid levels or include a driveshaft tachometer from drive train sensors 217. The most importantcollection of sensors though is the engine sensor package 221 connectedto the engine controller 230 which includes an engine tachometer, an airintake temperature gauge (providing a reasonable reading of ambienttemperature), coolant temperatures, and engine oil temperature, leveland dielectric constant readings. The engine controller 220 provides aconvenient point of connection for a urea level sensor 270 whichmonitors urea tank 271 fill levels.

Microprocessor/body computer 230 is itself a controller and can be usedfor direct monitoring of vehicle components, such as the working statusof lights connected to an electrical system 233. Body computer 230operates as a controller on two distinct CAN busses. Devices usingproprietary codes are coupled to the second bus and here include a GPSreceiver unit 242, a specialized controller 244 and a cell-phonetransceiver unit 240, each of which include a CAN interface 250.Transceiver unit 240 additionally a microcontroller 241, a modulatingunit 243 and a transceiver unit 245 connected to an antenna 247. Datacollected by body computer 230, mostly over the first CAN network, aretransferred using code blocks defined for that function over the secondCAN network to cell phone unit 240 where it is used to modulate acarrier for transmission. Body computer 230 has access to data such asmileage and to clock information, fuel consumption and urea tank filllevels, as well as GPS data, allowing the body computer to stamp datarecords as to time, date, mileage and location relating to sensorreading falling outside of normal reading categories or otherwisemeeting some criteria defined by the operator. This is based on a needor desire to maintain the record for use of the central server 114.

Referring to FIG. 3, a flow chart is used for describing operations atthe vehicle and server level supporting the system and process of thepresent invention. Upon start of a vehicle, and recurring periodicallythereafter vehicle 102 location is obtained from a GPS unit 303 orequivalent (step 301). At step 305 the vehicle's destination list isupdated. GPS location information may be used to key removal ofdestinations from the top of the list and follow on destinations may bereordered and added. With each update of the destination list projectedroutes are changed (step 307). A geographic information system 309 maybe accessed to produce routes including considerations such as detoursor even instant traffic conditions. It is conceivable on some vehiclesthat the routing and destination ordering may be made interactive, basedon availability of routes and congestion considerations. The projection311 of urea consumption may be based on projected fuel economy for theselected routes and a range estimated based on projected usage and thecurrent urea tank fill level. Once this is done urea replenishmentoptions may be generated for display to the driver (step 313)emphasizing urea service facilities 190 located along projected routes.If the options are not favorable, pre-staging of urea at a urea servicefacility 190 may be considered (step 315) and positioning (step 317) ofsupplies made.

Those skilled in the art will now appreciate that alternativeembodiments of the invention can exist. While the invention is shown inone of its forms, it is not thus limited but is susceptible to variouschanges and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe invention.

1. For a vehicle equipped with an internal combustion engine and anexhaust after-treatment system using urea, a urea replenishmentmanagement system comprising: a position determining unit installed onthe vehicle; a urea tank and urea tank fill level sensor; a remoteserver having access to geographic information including locationsproviding urea replenishment for vehicles; a body computer installed onthe vehicle and coupled to receive data from the position determiningunit and the urea tank fill level sensor and to receive inputs from anddisplay information on driver input/output interface; a communicationssystem link between the remote server and the body computer; the remoteserver being responsive to vehicle location and urea tank fill levelsfor providing urea supply locations over the communications system linkto the body computer for display on the driver input/output interface.2. The urea replenishment management system of claim 1, furthercomprising: the remote server further providing analysis of availableurea replenishment locations with vehicle location, vehicle destinationand routing information to generate driver guidance to the driver forobtaining urea resupply for display on the driver input/outputinterface.
 3. The urea replenishment management system of claim 2,further comprising: the remote server being further programmed togenerate orders for delivery of urea to locations accessible from avehicle's projected route.
 4. The urea replenishment management systemof claim 3, further comprising: the remote server tracking fuelconsumption against urea tank fill levels and estimating vehicleoperating range based on urea reserves.
 5. The urea replenishmentmanagement system of claim 4, further comprising the body computerproviding for removing, adding and reordering a destination list.
 6. Amethod of managing replenishment of urea on a diesel engine equippedvehicle using urea for exhaust after treatment, the method comprisingthe steps of: periodically updating a list of destinations for thevehicle; determining routes for the truck from the list of destinationsand a geography information system; monitoring urea tank fill levels andestimating remaining range of vehicle operation as a function of ureaconsumption and reserves; and generating for display a list of supplydepots keyed to the determined routes for the vehicle driver.
 7. Amethod of managing replenishment of urea as claimed in claim 6,comprising the additional step of: responsive to indication that nosupply depot is acceptable, ordering delivery of a supply of urea to adesignated location for use in replenishing the vehicle.
 8. A dataintegration system for motor vehicle urea replenishment servicing,comprising: a central database of urea service facilities located acrossa geographic area and availability of urea at the urea servicefacilities; a plurality of vehicles requiring periodic urea servicingtraversing the geographic area; and a communication system linking theplurality of vehicles to the central database allowing the vehicles toindicate a need for urea replenishment and the central database todistribute to the vehicles individualized lists of prospective ureaservice facilities.
 9. A data integration system as claimed in claim 8,further comprising: the plurality of vehicles including data processingfacilities allowing generation and updating of a list of destinations.10. A data integration system as claimed in claim 9, further comprising:the central database providing routes for each vehicle based on the listof destinations and responsive to forecast need for urea replenishment.11. A data integration system as claimed in claim 10, furthercomprising: means for ordering positioning of urea for a vehicle.